


A Road Trip (A Disgusting Human Invention)

by tarragonthedragon



Series: On the Run AU [1]
Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Bickering, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 20:48:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21398428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarragonthedragon/pseuds/tarragonthedragon
Summary: In which a magician, a spirit, and a commoner are crammed into the cramped space of a single Honda Civic and are unable to stop and shout at each other. It's not going to end well.
Series: On the Run AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542679
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2019





	A Road Trip (A Disgusting Human Invention)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Buffintruder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/gifts).

> The first line of my plan for this was "there exists a secret society of posh wizards", and it escalated from there. Make of that as you will.

"

Don’t move!”

Nathaniel froze, praying that the pillar behind him was enough to keep him hidden. Across the room, he saw the demon settle into an approximation of human stillness. 

It would be fine. Lovelace had his hands on the pendulum already, the demon would grab them both and they would be gone before the cop could--

The demon’s behemoth form vanished into coiling smoke, wisping away across the room, away from Nathaniel, coiling around Lovelace.

His eyes met Nathaniel’s for just a second, and he smiled. 

The smoke coiled tighter, and they vanished in an implosion that twisted and burst out of nothingness, ricocheting into the pillar that hid him. If Nathaniel hadn’t already been stumbling towards them, the explosion might have killed him, but instead it took him up off his feet and onto his hands before he came crashing to the ground in a desperate crawling roll, diving for the wall as the ceiling was ripped down by the pillar’s collapse away from him. 

There was shouting, screaming, but all he could see was the marble table, the tiny shelter it offered from the magic and the rubble cascading down around him-- his vision went black as pain fireworked out from his shoulder-- but the table was in reach, and he huddled under it, fumbling for his knife. 

Even in the chaos of the room, slicing his palm open still hurt. His hands shook as he smeared a bloody pentagram onto the tiny scrap of sheltered carpet, ignoring the dust and the thumping around, whispering a ritual he had long since stored away for emergencies, a summoning with only a scrap of the usual protections and all the energy he had left to enforce them-- if he failed here, he was worse off than if the policemen or the rubble took him, but Nathaniel grit his teeth and held his faith.

A storm began to brew in the tiny pentagram, sand whirling up in a tornado no bigger than his arm. He hissed a command, woozy and slurring, and ripped the knife through the drying blood just seconds before his vision blacked out to nothingness. 

…

It was at the very least mildly surprising to wake up. Considerably more surprising to Nathaniel was waking up sprawled over the back seats of a tiny, stationary car that smelt of wet dog, to the sounds of traffic in the distance. 

“Where the hell am I?” he asked the demon in the driver’s seat. 

The demon didn’t appear startled in the least to hear him speak, still looking down at the map in his hands. “I believe it’s called a Honda Civic, according to the police report.”

“How far did you get me?” Demons seldom waited for a chance to kill. His slapdash invocation had worked. Nathaniel aimed to convey the air of confidence that would imply he had had no doubts. 

“Brentford,” the demon replied, in a tone of voice which implied his view of Brentford about matched Nathaniel’s. “I stopped at dawn, thought somebody might notice that the car was floating rather than driving.”

“It was what?” He started to sit up--

“Stay down,” the demon warned. “You’re covered in blood. You’ll attract attention.”

Nathaniel raised a hand to his face and felt tacky, flaking blood there. “You couldn’t have cleaned that up?”

“I left you a baby wipes.”

Nathaniel used his fumbling for the pack to cover the childish moment of absurdity as the demon said that, wiping himself down as best he could and zipping up his black jacket over the rushed bandaging job on his shoulder. He scrambled into the front seat with as dignified a posture as he could, ordering the demon into the passenger side so he could start the car. The need to get moving burned in him like a hot coal, the memory of Lovelace’s cold smile flashing when he closed his eyes to breathe. “Keep watch. I want to know if we’re followed.”

The demon huffed a little, but did so. “I take it you do  _ have _ a plan?”

“Of course I do.” Nathaniel racked his brain. “There’s someone we’ve been trying to track down. I’m going to find her, I’m going to recruit her, and she’s going to kill Simon Lovelace for me.”

The demon looked at him with disbelieving dark eyes. “You do see how that’s more of a to-do list than a plan?”

“Quiet, demon. I’m looking for a drive-through.”

***

A drive-through, it transpired, was a particularly unpleasant way of acquiring food that humans had invented at some point since my last enslavement. My master-- a foppish-looking teenager with a poorly-hidden knife in his belt-- ordered two wrapped parcels and tossed one of them in my general direction under the woman at the window’s utter lack of scrutiny, and snatched it back to eat them both, one handed, as he drove.

I had seen viscera less revolting than the display. 

The magician drove until nightfall without speaking, despite my genial attempts at friendly conversation, and clambered back into the backseat as soon as he judged it safe enough for me to take over our transport. An unwise decision, in my opinion, as my manner of transporting us remained elevating the Honda Civic a little above the ground and floating us in roughly the same pattern of movement as the car in front, switching to a new target whenever I got bored, hemmed only by his vague order to head towards Manchester and the explanations of street signs that accompanied it. 

This was that they had come to, the magicians. Honestly, one unsuccessful coup and they were back to squabbling over looted trinkets like the vermin they were, backstabbing each other for such palfrey matters as the pendulum that had been advertised on the walls of the room I had been summoned in. And they had the nerve to call upon us. 

The boy-magician had had the sense to keep his knife on him as he slept, not knowing that it was too late to do him any good, and I had to hold back a snort at the taste of blood in the air when I took a particularly sharp turn that let it graze his side. 

Even trapped in the tiny car-- unwilling to be impressed by just how fast the things had gotten-- the night brought on the kind of solitude that reminded me of long ago, of seeing the world as free and windswept as a feather. The lights stripping by drowned out the stars, the humans on the road eclipsed the sounds of nighttime creatures, but the focus of carrying the car along was almost meditative. By the third night, the thoughtfulness had grown dull, and I took to bearing down on whichever human had been unfortunate enough to become my current target, following them through less and less populous roads until finally taking a turn at random and selecting a fresh target. 

By day, as the boy-magician ate, he didn’t question my erratic journeying, mistaking it for attempts to evade capture. Given that he had spared no time to tell me from whom we might fear capture, this was a rather stupid assumption, but it did not surprise me, from this boy with his name carved into a bone-carved dagger. 

Not stupid, iif I were feeling charitable, but presumptive. Uncautious. Overconfident. Utterly, irritatingly, human. 

If he were still for more than a few hours, I was sure, he would have carved out a circle just to punish me for my cheek, but the fear was as obvious in him as the hunger for vengeance, against the magician I had tasted in the air outside the crumbling building. 

If he had been truly cautious, it might have taken us weeks to reach the grey Northern town he drove us uncertainly into. With the boy’s surety in his cleverness, it took us four nights. 

***

“Why are you buying those?” the demon asked, lip curling in disgust at Nathaniel’s armful of jump leads, permanent markers, and a soggy falafel wrap. 

“You don’t eat,” he sniped. Ignoring the demon only encouraged him further. “And move, I can’t reach the coconut water.”

“The woman in the last station seemed quite sure you were too young to purchase drinks,” the demon said even as the form of the dark-skinned boy slinked aside. 

Nathaniel still had to stretch to pull down a bottle. “Those were energy drinks, and I  _ am _ old enough, I just can’t  _ prove  _ it. Now shut up and grab some of those firelighters.”

The woman at the desk didn’t even ask for I.D. this time, which at least spared him any further needling from the demon, though she chattered inanely with it throughout the exchange. This was irritating, but probably helped her not to notice the suspiciously clean notes he was paying with, and meant she wasn’t altogether surprised when he asked her a few pointed questions about his cousin working at the service station just beyond the lorry park. 

The demon eyed the building dubiously as they approached, leaving their supplies in the car. “This is where you intend to find your proposed assassin?”

“Quiet, demon. I have no idea which of these resiliences this girl showed signs of, so we won’t be keeping your nature secret. Anything I do keep quiet, however, you will not share with her.” Nathaniel stopped outside a small row of food buckets advertising itself as a carvery to adjust his hair in the reflection of the sneeze protector. 

In the reflection beside him, the Egyptian boy rolled his eyes. “And you think she’ll care about the state of your preening. My faith in this potential ally of yours could not possibly be lower.”

“I dislike her intensely, but--”

“And just like that, my faith is renewed--”

“You will be quiet.” 

By some blessing, the demon must have noticed Nathaniel’s sudden focus, and fell silent. 

The girl was glaring at the customer over the counter of a Café Nero, long dark hair pulled through messily back and arms folded over a coffee stained apron. Nathaniel slunk over quietly and joined the line. 

“Hi there, how can I help you?” she asked, without even an attempt at a customer service smile when he stepped forwards. 

“I’ll have a tall skinny black Americano with two pumps of caramel syrup, and your number,” he said, elbowing the demon in the ribs as her bored expression turned to something that could have been interest or possibly disgust. It conjured a small flame in its palm, just visible over the counter. 

She gave him a thin smile. “How about you just wait for your coffee at the end like everyone else.”

He smiled back and moved along the counter, ignoring the unimpressed sniggers of the commuters around him, and those of the demon in particular. 

His drink hit the counter in front of him almost hard enough to spill off its lid. “Overly complicated drink for the wannabe casanova?” 

He raised an arch eyebrow. 

“My lunch break is in three quarters an hour. I’ll meet you by the casino.”

“I look forward to it.” He took a sip of his drink, and almost choked, but walked away with quiet dignity, the demon following on his heels. 

***

Kitty Jones pulled off her apron and grabbed a panini out of the toaster on her way over to the shadowy cave of obnoxious arcade games where the posh kid and his magic friend were waiting under the broken neon CASINO sign. 

She took a mouthful just as she got close to them, scowling. “If you’re here to kill me, you could have at least spared me the end of my shift.”

“I’m not here to kill you!” he yelped, his ridiculous posh accent going from obnoxious drawl to embarassing squeak. Fireball guy snorted. The posh kid smoothed down his cheap hoodie and jerked up his chin. “You’re Kathleen Jones. You turned on Makepeace last year when you were working security for his exhibition in Soho.”

She glared at him. “I didn’t  _ turn on _ anyone. I was a whistleblower.”

“Yes, yes, I’m familiar. You then managed to escape the two djinn sent to apprehend you, apparently unharmed, and vanished entirely.”

“And yet you’re here, interrupting my break.” She ripped another chunk of bread off with her teeth. 

He gave her a smile he probably thought was engaging. “How would you like an opportunity to prove the truth, Kathleen Jones?”

“What’s in it for you?” she asked, rather than pussyfoot around it. 

“They’re after me as well,” he said. Jerked his head toward fireball guy. “My djinn here is my only protection, unless I want to risk being found. I want them off my back, you want Makepeace arrested. Quid pro quo.”

“That doesn’t make you sound untrustworthy at all,” muttered the  _ djinn _ , though he fell quiet at a glare from the posh boy. 

She finished her sandwich, which meant she could finally give in to the urge to cross her arms. “And why should I believe you?”

“Well, I could summon a spirit and watch them send something far more powerful to kill us all,” he suggested, in a tone of irritation which was considerably more likeable than anything he had done so far. “Or I could show you the injuries from when Lovelace dropped a museum on me.”

Lovelace, she presumed, was another member of his stupid magic Eton boy terrorism club. The club that had ruined her life and left her best friend in a coma. Kitty had never claimed not to be rash about this kind of thing. “Sounds fun. I’m in. Let’s go.”

The posh boy-- who still hadn’t given her a name-- apparently didn’t notice that she was casually abandoning her job as she grabbed her backpack from her locker and followed him out to the car park, although the djinn casually stepped between her and her manager’s line of sight in a motion that didn’t look entirely natural. He led her to a battered-looking Honda with completely different spatters of mud and grime on its rear bumper than its license plates. Unimpressed, she climbed into the passenger side door and kicked a pile of leads out of her leg room. 

“My name’s John, by the way,” he said, pulling out of the car park. She watched the djinn’s unimpressed expression in the rear view mirror. “We need to get some distance behind us before anyone following us notices how long we were at that rest stop and figures out where you were the same way I did. We won’t be able to stop for your things.”

“I’m packed.”

“Excellent.”

The car fell into uncomfortable silence, broken only by the djinn in the back seat incinerating a number of junk food wrappers. 

***

The commoner girl uncurled as the magician pulled to a stop, peeling off the road in the middle of nowhere, lit by the setting sun. I released myself from the back of the car, kicking aside a few items of human litter left by the side of the winding country road, watching the birds flit by as the two humans moved around the car so they could sit facing one another. Apparently whilst the magician had had little issue detailing his poorly-thought-out plan whilst driving, maintaining actual dialogue with the commoner without wrapping us around a light fixture was beyond the capacity of his human brain.

“Your plan is terrible,” she said bluntly. Against my better judgement, I was warming to this human a little. 

He puffed up like an offended rooster. “My plan is the only way we can succeed!”

“Your plan doesn’t account for  _ any _ retaliation from them! Are they going to just sit back and let us get away with landing a bunch of their people in prison?”

“I can take care of that,” the magician assured her, because he was of course planning to simply step into the void of power she left behind, and most likely have the girl and all his imprisoned opposition killed. 

She glared at him. I watched them with mild disgust. They lapsed into the kind of childish bickering humans were so fond of. 

Eventually, the magician strode away in disgust, and began to make up the back seat of the car with an oddly-shaped sack of what was apparently bedlinen that the commoner had pulled from her backpack. “We only have another hour or so before we’ve been here long enough to be traceable. Wake me up after six hours, and then Kitty can sleep.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a little more beauty sleep?” I asked, sweetly. 

He ignored me, adding to a delightful new pattern of being unwilling to give me direct orders in front of the commoner. Her presence was making itself welcome already. 

The other benefit was, of course, that whilst the magician slept I had no need to attempt to pretend to be driving, as the commoner took the driving seat and I simply sat next to her and kept watch for any sign of a follower, which was more likely to actually be necessary than it had been before, our increased number of stops and starts today making the tracking spell I could feel coiling about my master curling tighter and heavier at each one. 

“So, you’re not human,” the commoner said. 

“And you’re not a sea slug,” I replied with distaste. 

Her nose wrinkled, unconsciously mirroring my own. “You look human. The other ones didn’t.”

I transformed into a smallish jaguar, by way of answer, and was reluctantly impressed when she failed to crash the car. 

“Right. Could you be human again please?” she asked, in a strained kind of voice. 

I obliged, returning to Ptolemy’s familiar form. “So you can’t see us, then.”

“What?” She shook her head, catching on before I could attempt to break the concept down to her level. “Wait, people can do that?”

“Some people. But that’s not the sort of resistance you have? What can you do?”

She shrugged. “I’m good at surviving, I guess. Nothing they threw at me did anything, but just one of them put my friend in hospital.”

“That’s quite the talent. I wouldn’t knock it.”

“What about you? What can you do? Where are you from?” She broke off her tide of questions to cast a glance over her shoulder as the sleeping magician stirred. 

I shrugged, a rolling human gesture that shifted me in my seat so that Ptolemy’s expressive face was turned away from her. “We come from the Other Place, summoned to this world by magicians. I can no more explain our limits and capacities to you than you could the workings of this car to a doormouse.”

She scoffed, laughing. Asked other inane questions as she drove, which was only a slight improvement on the boredom of silence, given her limited capacity for understanding, but gave me any number of helpful opportunities to hint at what the magician had in store for her.  _ Not sharing with her _ was, after all, an order so easily subverted that from the mouth of a more competent master I might have feared a trap. 

Nathaniel had summoned me with a ritual popular in Sumeria some three thousand years prior, back when magicians used their true names as binding tools and had no cause to hide them. It required, amongst other things, his blood, his name, and a bone knife, unified in one instrument. It was a highly effective ritual for summoning and binding a spirit, and I would possibly have been mildly impressed at the magician’s temerity had he shown the sense to  _ hide the knife _ , if all the punishments and tricks he knew were modern ones that had no impact with an easy counterspell using his true name. Competence was not a virtue I associated with this master in the least. Nor was careful driving, or quiet sleeping, or good personal hygiene. 

  
The commoner informed me that these were all common complaints of road trip companions, and voiced all of them and many more whilst he slept. Thus far, the  _ road trip _ was proving itself a form of human activity even more horrifying than the drive-through on the first day, and I was entirely certain that it would only worsen as we approached the stage where something interesting might finally happen. 

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued! 
> 
> I will be continuing this, because it was supposed to be considerably longer but I came down with a really bad flu a week before the deadline and have spent that entire time hacking up my lungs or unconscious. A sequel will cover more shenanigans!
> 
> Not entirely sure this is really in the spirit of a road trip au, but I had a lot of fun writing it! As always, feel free to get on touch with me @tarragonthedragon on tumblr or @the mythology mafia in the Bartimaeus fandom discord. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and see you again soon!


End file.
